National Science Foundation

Electric Avenue: Electric cars on a two-way street?

Think of it as the end of cars' slacker days: No more sitting idle for hours in parking lots or garages racking up payments, but instead earning their keep by helping store power for the electricity grid.

Flexible solar cells with silicon wire arrays

Caltech researchers create highly absorbing, flexible solar cells with silicon wire arrays

Fiber nanogenerators could lead to electric clothing

In research that gives literal meaning to the term "power suit," University of California, Berkeley, engineers have created energy-scavenging nanofibers that could one day be woven into clothing and textiles.

NC State creates new breed of antennas

Antennas aren't just for listening to the radio anymore. They're used in everything from cell phones to GPS devices. Research from North Carolina State University is revolutionizing the field of antenna design - creating shape-shifting antennas that open the door to a host of new uses in fields ranging from public safety to military deployment.

Wearable thermoelectric energy harvesting device

Perpetua Power Source Technologies, Inc. (Perpetua) has announced that it has been awarded a Small Business Innovation Research contract from the National Science Foundation (NSF) to develop and demonstrate a wearable thermoelectric generator solution that is capable of powering wireless sensors by harvesting available energy from body heat.

Stanford-led research helps overcome barrier for organic electronics

Electronic devices can't work well unless all of the transistors, or switches, within them allow electrical current to flow easily when they are turned on. A team of engineers has determined why some transistors made of organic crystals don't perform well, yielding ideas about how to make them work better.

Nanostructures on optical fiber produce hidden photovoltaic cells

Converting sunlight to electricity might no longer mean large panels of photovoltaic cells atop flat surfaces like roofs. uniUsing zinc oxide nanostructures grown on optical fibers and coated with dye-sensitized solar cell materials, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new type of three-dimensional photovoltaic system. The approach could allow PV systems to be hidden from view and located away from traditional locations such as rooftops.

Breakthrough in industrial-scale nanotube processing

Rice University scientists have unveiled a method for the industrial-scale processing of pure carbon-nanotube fibers that could lead to revolutionary advances in materials science, power distribution and nanoelectronics.

Nanostructures on optical fiber produce hidden photovoltaic cells

Converting sunlight to electricity might no longer mean large panels of photovoltaic cells atop flat surfaces like roofs. uniUsing zinc oxide nanostructures grown on optical fibers and coated with dye-sensitized solar cell materials, researchers at the Georgia Institute of Technology have developed a new type of three-dimensional photovoltaic system. The approach could allow PV systems to be hidden from view and located away from traditional locations such as rooftops.

Carbon nanotubes may cheaply harvest sunlight

University of Wisconsin-Madison researchers are studying how to create inexpensive, efficient solar cells from carbon nanotubes, which are sheets of carbon rolled into seamless cylinders 1-nanometer in diameter.

Carbon nanotubes could make efficient solar cells

In a carbon nanotube-based photodiode, electrons (blue) and holes (red) - the positively charged areas where electrons used to be before becoming excited - release their excess energy to efficiently create more electron-hole pairs when light is shined on the device.

Carbon nanotubes could make efficient solar cells

In a carbon nanotube-based photodiode, electrons (blue) and holes (red) - the positively charged areas where electrons used to be before becoming excited - release their excess energy to efficiently create more electron-hole pairs when light is shined on the device.

NSF Spintronics grant helps NC State researchers

NSF Spintronics grant will help NC State researchers develop smaller, faster electronic devices

Putting a strain on nanowires could yield colossal results

Structural irregularities in correlated electron materials - a phenomenon known as "phase inhomogeneity" - could be engineered at the sub-micron scale to achieve such desired properties as colossal magnetoresistance

Camera flash turns an insulating material into a conductor

An insulator can now be transformed to conduct electricity by an ordinary camera flash.

New graphene-based nano-material designed with magnetic properties

An international team of researchers has designed a new graphite-based, magnetic nano-material that acts as a semiconductor and could help material scientists create the next generation of electronic devices like microchips.

Self-assembled DNA scaffolding to build tiny circuit boards

Nanotechnology advance could lead to smaller, faster, more energy-efficient computer chips

A new cloaking method might shield buildings from earthquakes

Mathematicians develop a new cloaking method that might shield submarines from sonar, planes from radar, buildings from earthquakes, and oil rigs and coastal structures from tsunamis.

Organic electronics a two-way street with new plastic semiconductor

About 30 years ago, it was discovered that some plastics, or polymers, could conduct electricity. Since then researchers have been working to make them more efficient.

Dip coated SWCNT for flexible electronics

Dip coated SWCNT microstructures on wafer-scale polymer for flexible electronics